


white ink between dark stars

by oriflamme



Series: robots. robots everywhere [5]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Adorabubble Horrorterrors, Alien Biology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Horrorterrors - Freeform, Loveable Eldritch Abomination Tailgate Thinks The Laws of Physics Are Hilarious Suggestions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-24 03:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8355730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriflamme/pseuds/oriflamme
Summary: Something follows Cyclonus back from the Dead Universe. It wears a Cybertronian body and gives itself a pronounceable name, but he still remembers what it looked like before it decided it liked him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I don't know half of what I'm talking about as regards to timeline/canon/characterization.

Cyclonus first encounters it within the bowels of the Ark.

Entering the anomaly in the Benzuli Expanse was...he cannot even call it a mistake, anymore. So much time has passed since then. Too much. This place has started to feel overly familiar; he would never claim this universe as his home, but he thinks _it_ has claimed _them_ for itself, and he is not sure that such a claim can be rescinded. Cyclonus can no longer recall what it feels like to not have a terrible, yawning emptiness in his spark, an abyss that waits patiently for him to step over the edge of his own accord. Something shifted inside him - inside all of the Ark's crew - when they came here, and with each passing of another stillborn vorn, Cyclonus can feel them shifting further out of sync with what they once were.

(He has stopped recharging. They have _all_ stopped recharging. But the nightmares do not stop.)

Once the cyberwraiths stop encroaching on the Ark and become passive, there isn't even the distraction of the occasional battle to break up the dead, drifting twilight of this place. The Ark decays a little more every day - its orbit decays while the engines rattle on, turning and turning, despite the fact that the fuel stopped igniting once they crossed the event horizon - no, they have no orbit, there is nothing _to_ orbit, there is no center it cannot hold -

Only a watchful, grasping void.

Cyclonus's processor can sense the fundamental wrongness, but to say it aloud, to put into words the insatiable emptiness crawling silently into their hollowed sparks - impossible. He leaves Nova and Galvatron and the rest to their conversations (how many times have they reiterated the same plans, talking in circles because there are too few of them left to make new conversation, turning and turning and turning in a widening gyre, as they forget there _is_ anything else to talk about) and ventures into the still, still depths of the ship. The metal of the walls has degraded; great swathes of rust mar the careful engravings in the walls, and the internal wiring hangs loose and exposed where the maintenance droids broke down mid-repair so many millennia ago. So many things have simply...stopped. With all the rust creeping along the walls there should be motes flaking off to drift through the corridors, following the current of the ventilation systems. But the ventilation systems also stopped. Moreover, most of the windows looking out upon the dead expanse of space have shattered, leaving a river of warped, broken borosilicate glass in their wake and allowing the void to fill the halls with stifling stillness and seam-stiffening cold.

They should all have been sucked out of the Ark when it happened. He doesn't know what it means, that they were not. The crew manifest is no longer accurate, that much he knows for certain, but Cyclonus can't keep it straight in his head - who of the original crew dropped dead the moment they crossed over ( ~~and who got back up afterward~~ )? Who collapsed under the sucking touch of a wraith? And who wandered in the muffled shadows deep in the Ark, seeking solitude for contemplation as he does now, and did not return?

He makes it to the engine room. This is more challenging a task than it should have been: he should _know_ this path by spark, but the Ark plays tricks on the mind. Every so often he forces himself to stop, fighting the sickening lurch in his tanks as he counts how many doors there are in this downward-sloping hallway; was there an intersection here before, or have the hallways undergone a subtle shift since his last visit? Did the rust stain along the floor spread so wide (like a fallen body) last time? He soldiers on, but the unpleasant uncertainty lingers in him until he reaches the threshold.

The engines are still running. They should not be running, but logic has yet to stop them, and he knows their dry, scraping rattle well. When they first arrived, the crew continued to eat and recharge by force of habit, and when the energon reservoirs ran out, they tried to convert the engine fuel - and found it inert. They soon realized it didn't matter: the engines continue to operate, and their bodies continue to function, and when Cyclonus accompanied Galvatron on an excursion to fend off the wraiths for sport for two years, without pausing to rest or refuel, he began to understand what they have become.

But he hears another noise when he pries the door open, and it has been long enough since Cyclonus heard a sound or a voice not stifled and thinned by the dead air here that the sudden, reverberating echo almost jolts his spark from his frame. Stepping into the engine room feels like walking into a bubble of sound - a palpable thrum layers over the engines' monotonous drone with an odd, piercing clarity. It stuns him for a moment and leaves him woozy as he staggers forward, one hand holding his helm and the other stretched out before him, reaching.

He finds it tucked under the main coolant tubes in one of the furthest corners. All he sees when he rounds the bend is some sort of thin fuel line coiling along the floor. The vibrating sound increases in intensity as he nears the source; he should assess the situation with more caution, but his processor is suddenly full of white noise, and he rushes forward filled with the terrible, inexorable need to _know_ what is there, what is real -

It seizes him before he can grab it. What he mistook for a trailing fuel line is...decidedly not. Many tendrils wrap around him and hold him in place as what he thought was the shadow of the coolant tanks unfolds over him. It - it's difficult to describe it in words. Countless round, dark eyes peer at him, the pupils narrowing into Ѡ-glyph shaped slits as it leans out into the half-light of the engine room. It's not actually darkly colored, but neither can Cyclonus say what color it _is_ \- his optic readouts spit back frantic, murky nonsense no matter how many times he resets them. He can see the creature's many, many, many limbs overlap and phase through its core in some kind of optical illusion that makes his auditory sensors somehow ache. Or perhaps they're aching because the unknowable thing has focused its hum on _him_ , rather than the engines, and the vibrations feel like they're going to burst his transformation seams and twist him in on himself. The pressure behind his optics rises as the creature's hum multiples and oscillates.

??: Can you hear me now?

"Yes," he forces out, his vocalizer responding before his processor catches up with it.

??: Good! Oh! Um...Sunquake and Core, on the life-field of rivets? 

In theory, this _thing_ is somehow, impossibly, speaking flawless Cybertronian. In practice, Cyclonus stares at it in incomprehension. He _knows_ the phrase that the creature is trying to use, but the way it pronounces the syllables reduces the metaphor into its discrete, component units, rather than forming a single fluid phrase. "I don't - what?" he says, the throbbing pressure behind his optics making it difficult to think.

??: Oh dear! Allegories. Sorry, just a liiittle more context -

His right optic splinters and begins to leak a stream of sparks and fluid down his face and into his vents. Then the pressure alleviates without warning, and Cyclonus lets his head drop in relief for a brief moment. The reverberating sound resolves into a single voice, bright and chipper and with an accent almost identical to his own, completely at odds with the informal mode it uses to chatter at him.

??: Hi! You're a linear being, aren't you? How interesting! How cute! 

??: It really is so nice to meet you. You've helped me get my bearings back with your nice...linearity! I feel like I've been lost here for eons. I thought at first there was nothing nice here, but you're not _from_ here! Thank you! 

??: Is that right? Is it pronounced 'thank you' or 'Nebulae and Tianhe on the spire'? 

"Both," Cyclonus says. Thinking feels easier now - the pressure of a humming, curious presence is gone, and it feels like it cut through the stifling fog that has filled his processor since they arrived in this universe. By the Hand - _why_ have they stayed so long in this wretched place? How long have they wandered in this dead, cloying void, drifting along with a flotilla of other dead starships that came and died before them? Cyclonus can't remember, his memories a blur that exceeds mere information creep, and that troubles him more deeply than the multi-angled being before him ever could.

??: Yay! I can use _two_ voices!

"What are you?" Cyclonus asks. Watching the creature for too long strains his ability to focus - it continuously coils and shifts, and the inky murk that obscures its true colors ripples in strange patterns. He gets the impression of something almost organic, with numerous tentacles that merge together at the center in a logarithmic spiral. Globules of a floating, starry black liquid fills the space between the tentacles, and they burst and reform in iridescent bubbles as the creature rearranges its many limbs. Cyclonus thinks he could fall into the liquid and never emerge; it possesses the same sense of depth and vertigo as a clear night sky.

??: Oh, lost. Gotta admit, it's a little embarrassing! B( Or a lot. A lot embarrassing. 

??: Or do you mean 'what' as in 'fundamental essence/being,' and not 'current state of said being'? 

Cyclonus is rapidly developing an entirely mundane ache in his processor, in addition to the crunch of pain that flares up whenever his broken optic tries to refocus and sparks. "What are you? Who are you? Why have you come here?" he demands. Not to mention _when_ \- this creature was not on board the Ark when Cyclonus last visited the engines. Of that much, he is certain. The haze clearing from his processor leaves him fumbling to put exact time stamps on everything that has happened since they arrived in this universe, though. But regardless of whatever fog has filled the minds of the Ark crew and his comrades, Cyclonus still has a duty to ascertain whether this new being is a threat to them. Something rarer and more insidious than the cyberwraiths, maybe?

The creature wobbles ambiguously, jostling him in its grip. Cyclonus has no idea how to interpret this except as a shrug.

??: III don't think you could pronounce my name! Or hear it. I tried to introduce myself earlier, but parts of it run backwards and mirrorwise, and you didn't seem to catch it. So it's a work in progress, but no worries! 

??: I am a me. There's not a name for it - we just are. Your closest words would be...extradimensional entity? Old One? But I am not old at all! BT

It eddies closer to him, and to Cyclonus's alarm he sinks deeper into the innumerable tendrils holding him aloft before several of the old one's eyes. Two of the largest eyes possess separate tentacles of their own at the corners of ocular sockets, and they flutter over Cyclonus's face with light touches. As more time passes, more of the creature resolves into a comprehensible shape. It is now quite clearly bright blue and white in color, instead of a murky mass of unseeable patterns beyond his optic range, and the vibrant, clean colors look strange compared to the dingy, decrepit metal of the Ark's hollow engines.

For the first time, it occurs to Cyclonus that he should attempt to break free and confront the creature properly, with his dignity, rather than dangling at its mercy. Perhaps once his arms and legs stop feeling like disjointed, distant parts, long gone numb and only now regaining sensation. He feels awake and clear for the first time in - far too long.

( _How long have they been here_?)

??: And er, well...the truth is, I got stuck here. My first interdimensional trip on my own, and my Alcubierre hyponome jammed up on the gunk in _this_ rotten place! The only other beings here were so mean, so...uh...um...I defeated them! Obviously! But I still couldn't find my way out. 

??: What about you? What are _you_?

_That_ , Cyclonus can muster up his pride for. "I am Cyclonus of Upper Tetrahex," he says. He lifts his chin, squares his shoulders, and draws himself up as straight as he can. If he could thump a fist to his chest, be would, but his servos are lost somewhere with feathery tentacles inspecting them. This must be remedied. "Of Cybertron. Release me."

The creature tries to pat his face again with one of the frilled ocular tentacles, and Cyclonus yanks his head away. But it's next to impossible to get out of reach when he's immersed in the thing's grip, and so it catches the glittering sparks that flare from his broken optic instead.

??: Are you sure? You're leaking now. You weren't leaking before...Are you broken? Oh no! Oh no oh no! Did I break you?! 

"It can be repaired," Cyclonus says, staying impassive and watchful as the creature's voice crescendos with what might be panic. It is the truth: optics are an essential body part, particularly for a warrior. He could function with only one intact, true, but the resulting loss of sensory input would be unacceptable in battle without considerable adjustments to his fighting style. Even with the Ark in general disrepair, their medical supplies should be intact, if Jhiaxus hasn't meddled with the replacement parts for some new, odd experiment. "Release me. I will not repeat myself again."

??: Great! That's good! Yes, down, right.

His heel brushes against the ground once before the thing gingerly sets him down, withdrawing the majority of its tentacles. But it continues to wrap around Cyclonus in a loose spiral, its tentacles susurrating through the air while its bulk bobs along level with Cyclonus's chest, and it keeps up a stream of bright chatter while Cyclonus discreetly inspects his own frame for signs of further damage. He appears to be intact, for the most part, but that doesn't leave him inclined to trust the thing, either.

??: I didn't mean to break you, I'm so sorry! You're so rigid and brittle...is all of you like that, or is it just an outer shell? Will it grow back? Shells are good, I like shells -

Its feathery tendrils bat at Cyclonus's sparking optic again and brush over the chipped glass. A cold jolt of pain stabs through Cyclonus's faceplate and down along his jaw, like an electric current running down his lines in an unpleasant rush. The thing might be an enigma that defies the laws of physics, but it is an _irritating_ enigma, and he is running low on patience. "Enough!" he snaps, rebuffing the next curious touch with a slash of sharp servos.

??: !!! 

He's not sure he can deal damage to the creature - it's not entirely corporeal, even now - but it warbles in distress and jerks away from his slash. Cyclonus's remaining optic stings as the creature immerses itself in a murky blur of shadows again and rushes away, the warble reaching a pitch that stuns Cyclonus again. Several kliks pass before he adjusts and can search for the thing's latest hiding place.

It's just tucked back under the coolant tube, though. When Cyclonus approaches, a forbidding glower on his face, the creature does its best impression of a knot, tangling its limbs over and over into a ball of inky shadows. Only three eyes stay visible in the gloom, all with round pupils that stream starry, black film. The film floats away as droplets when enough gathers at the ends of its tendrils. Now that he knows what to look for, though, the smokescreen is obvious. "...You did not defeat anything in this realm," Cyclonus says, after a moment's pause. If the creature really is as inexperienced and easy to startle as this, he doubts it has ever seen battle.

??: ............... 

The creature wilts, folding its tentacles over its last open eyes. It lets the dizzying shadows drop, but stays curled in a shuddering blue and white heap. Collapsed like this, it looks so much smaller.

??: No. 

??: There's something really nasty here. I just kept getting more lost, and dizzy. And no one is going to be looking for me for...a long time. My first solo trip, and all that! I could be gone forever before anybody misses me. 

He shouldn't have spoken to this creature. It sounds lonely and horribly young, and Cyclonus has never known how to deal with the antics of mechs fresh out of their protoforms and in the energetic burst of their first fully armored frame, let alone the troubles of a completely alien, physics-defying species. He finds words difficult at the best of times; this is not his forte, and his discomfort increases by the klick. "But you are capable of leaving, now," he points out, folding his arms. Stern and stoic - he can manage that easily.

It brightens. Literally. The blues and whites all brighten, and ten different eyes pop open as the creature puffs up in excitement. It smacks a pair of tendrils on the ground to push itself up. Cyclonus takes a step back, ready to defend himself, but the creature is just...painfully exuberant.

??: I can! I know how to get to a place that resonates with you, because you go that direction! 

_Cybertron_ , Cyclonus thinks, and his gaze sharpens. Yes, Nova and the rest have their plans to find other portals out of this dead universe and do Primus knows what else, but if there is already a way to get home - "Could you transport others the same way?" he asks, with a piercing throb in his spark. (How long have they been here? What has changed since they left?)

Its earlier panic already forgotten, apparently, the creature hesitates and sneaks out a not at all subtle tendril to prod at Cyclonus's knee. His immediate reflex is to kick it away and snarl a warning, but it retracts the tentacle and taps it against another tendril in a pensive gesture, leaning out and looking up at Cyclonus for a moment before answering.

He knows the answer before it even opens its - mouths. It has many mouths, not all of them in use; it's just two at the moment, one speaking normally and the other keeping up a constant murmur of metaphor and lyric and subglyphs underneath as it plays around with Cybertronian.

??: I don't think so. You really are kind of brittle; no squish at all. I don't want to break you worse! 

??: And... 

Cyclonus did not expect anything, and therefore cannot be disappointed. He tells himself this until it's true, an internal mantra, and then prompts the creature to continue. "And?"

The creature taps its tendrils again, stretches one out toward him, and hastily reels it back in when Cyclonus narrows his remaining optic. It rearranges all of its tentacles in a migraine-inducing shuffle, and when it speaks again it sounds sad and apologetic at the same time.

??: This place...I think it did something bad to you. You go in the same direction as the next universe over, but there's something else inside you. Do you know what it did?

Oh.

He's known it for some time now, though the thought has been difficult to keep hold of amidst the haze this universe induces. Or perhaps Cyclonus just hasn't seen the point of fretting over something that is beyond his power to alter. He has always been prepared to accept death as it came; it's just a little more troubling to have died and to have kept right on _going_. The Ark crossed into a dead place, and they have suffered the natural consequences. Regardless of whether or not the others bring their plans to fruition, Cyclonus has steadfastly not concerned himself of what might happen to their frames and sparks once they exit this universe.

Venting a sigh, he leans back against the wall. He keeps his arms folded and chooses to focus on a rusted corner of the floor instead of trying to maintain optic contact (a talent which Cyclonus is already unskilled at) with a creature that possesses far more eyes than the Cybertronian standard. He does not need to juggle that on top of everything else. "I believe that we have all been dead for some time, yes. Since the moment we arrived here," he says. The hungry emptiness in the center of his spark flexes and yawns wider.

Everything, he thinks, is dead here.

??: Dead? Does it hurt? Can you fix it?

The old one utters every synonymous phrase for 'dead' that it has in its arsenal (presumably taken from Cyclonus's own language centers) layered over each other, and Cyclonus winces internally at the absolute hash it makes by mangling the metaphors like that. 'Vivacity at Vector Sigma' was never meant to be uttered at the same time as 'Threnody at the barrier,' no matter how overly-exaggerated the ballad. It just sounds preposterous.

And meanwhile, the naïve question feels like grit scraping in an open wound. "No. It does not hurt," he says - a haze of hopelessness is not the same as physical pain - and he looks away from the creature to stare into the distance. It starts to make relieved, happy sounds, and Cyclonus interrupts before it can gain momentum. "We came here through an anomaly in space, and my comrades wish to eventually return the same way."

Whether they'll survive the crossing - well. Cyclonus has no way of knowing. Hope would be pointless.

The creature, however, is not on the same wavelength. It bubbles up with yet more elation, and streams out from under the coolant tube to curl up closer to Cyclonus. It does not outright touch him, though its tentacles occasionally dance close and then snake back in barely-contained delight, and he levels a grim look at the creature that goes unheeded. If his spark still emitted an E.M. field, he might feel more inclined to enforce his personal space, but that is - no longer a concern.

??: That might work! I hope you can get home soon!

"Yes. Home," he agrees. Letting his remaining optic blink off for a moment, Cyclonus pulls up a memory file with Tetrahex's skyline, and then blinks his optic back on to stare at the floor. He can't lose himself in sentimentality while he's still dealing with an unknown entity of an indeterminate threat level. True, his instincts say the creature is more likely to annoy him to death than outright attack him, but his cracked optic would beg to differ.

??: You know what? I'll wait for you there!

Cyclonus clearly cannot afford to tune this creature out for even a moment's rest, because he has no idea how it leapt onto this train of thought. He stares at it in trepidation while the creature spins in an excited whirlwind of tentacles. The dark clouds of liquid have inverted in color, so that dark stars fill the white bubbles around its spiraling mass. "I - what?" he says, suddenly full of deep foreboding.

??: In the place where you came from! It's gotta be the next stop on my trip, anyway, so I'll meet you when you get back! It'll be fun! You can show me your home, and I can get a souvenir shell and go on a tour of a universe that isn't nasty and icky! 

Now Cyclonus is legitimately just...speechless. There are no words. None. "...I do not recall volunteering for this," he says, after resetting his vocalizer twice in quick succession. His processor has already begun to churn out mental images of the creature traipsing through the skyways of Tetrahex, warping reality and cheerfully singing at exactly the right pitch to shatter the crystal of the higher spires.

??: I won't be any trouble at all! You'll see. 

He pinches the bridge of his nose, and concentrates on regulating his ventilation cycle until the irrational horror subsides a little. The cynical part of Cyclonus concluded long ago that the Ark crew would never return to Cybertron alive, anyway, and he can't imagine that returning dead would end well, if it ever happens. He says nothing, merely grunting in quiet mental anguish, and the creature gives a chipper whistle that he takes to mean it is pleased with his implied agreement. "Were you not going to leave?" he asks, his vocalizer just a little strained. As much as he dislikes the thought of this creature rambling across Cybertron unchecked, he would like the conversation to end sometime soon, before his words run out for the day and he's left with no mental energy to respond to Galvatron when he returns to the bridge. And if the creature leaves the engine room and absconds from this universe, that is one less potential threat to account for.

The reminder jolts the creature; it twitches and braids a pair of tendrils together, while the tentacles with frilled edges flare wide.

??: Oh! Yeah. 

??: I'm just...a little... 

Alien or not, Cyclonus knows that tone. His tanks begin to sink in resignation. "Incapable," he finishes for the creature, his voice dry as rust. The creature flares up more with an indignant huff, uncoiling more of its central mass to look taller than him, but Cyclonus's skepticism has already been roused and he stares it down with a impassive expression.

??: No! I can totally leave! And I will! 

??: ...Don't you want to talk? For just a little longer? 

He groans internally; externally, he exvents with too much force to call it a sigh. "No. I fail to see what the point would be," he says, terse.

??: Right. Right...

Like before, the creature visibly droops. It doesn't sulk back under the coolant tube, but it folds more of itself up again and dulls in color as Cyclonus watches, unmoved. Soon there's not much left visible except the spiral of the creature's central mass and the very tips of its tentacles, the blues and whites dulled to the point that it looks greyed out like a dead frame.

Unless shrinking in disappointment is a heretofore unknown method of interdimensional travel (Cyclonus wouldn't know), the creature either can't leave, or won't. He might be able to motivate it to leave if he drives it away with sufficient force - or he might just send it scurrying to conceal itself elsewhere on the Ark. Casting around for something to say that will inspire the creature to make good on its word, Cyclonus glances around the engine room, feeling very old. "Why the engine room?" he asks, and the creature gives a full-body flinch.

??: What? 

"The Ark's engines. Why come _here_?" Cyclonus repeats, his voice still clipped. The creature blinks at him and slowly blooms with color again, bobbing closer and swinging two loose tentacles in fidgety circles.

??: Oh, because they were still singing! It's very broken and stilted, but they haven't stopped. Most things here do. 

??: Do you ever sing, Cyclonus? 

He _came_ here to sing, and to find a place where he didn't have to concern himself with the reactions of others. His ability to tolerate conversation has been at a low ebb and this...this hasn't helped. On the one hand, Cyclonus feels more alert than he has in vorns. On the other, if the creature keeps stalling and putting off its departure, he might be reduced to picking it up and escorting it to the nearest open airlock the hard way. Even then, he's not sure it would take the hint. "I do. It reminds me of Cybertron," he says, reluctant and well aware that he might be opening up the floodgates.

The creatures emits a soft, tiny gasp, and touches its tendrils gently to its mouths. Then it makes an attempt to touch _Cyclonus_ 's mouth, and is not at all intimidated or deterred when he smacks its tentacle away.

??: Ooooohh! Sing! Would you sing, please? 

Cyclonus brought this on himself, really. The creature keeps making inquisitive, expectant chirring sounds, and finally Cyclonus looks down at his hands. "And if I do, will you leave?" he asks, closing one hand into a fist and then flexing the servos. As weary as he is of talk, there is a tiny alert flickering in the back of his processor: that he doesn't know what will happen once this thing leaves. What further effect will this universe have upon him and the other Ark crew members, and will they even be alive enough to realize what's become of them, in the end?

??: Yes. I promise.

They'll find out, one way or another, he supposes. "Very well then." Were he on Cybertron, he could launch into song with the proper gusto, and his audience would undoubtedly know the song's name and key from the first note. Since he is dealing with an alien, he first says the name ('In which Mnemosyne and Starsteel liberate the Scouring Wastes in Primus's name, featuring no less than three duels, one explosion, two proclamations of enduring comradeship [to be recited in full] and five extant idioms of forgotten origin') as an introduction, before launching into the first verse. Caught off guard, apparently, the creature startles and rushes to curl up on the floor, flailing its tendrils in an flurry before deciding how it wants to arrange itself. A few more pairs of eyes peep out at Cyclonus, reflecting tiny pinpricks of light that are not present in the engine room itself, and it watches him with rapt attention.

It's not a normal audience, and not one Cyclonus would have chosen right here and now. But so long as the creature doesn't try to join in, it is easy for him to concentrate on the music instead.

(Eventually, it tries to sing along. Of course. He doesn't know what else he expected.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tailgate: /flutters tentacle eyelashes/  
> Cyclonus: What the fuck
> 
> [This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPwPo-IAQ-E) [is](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/sweetbroandhellajeff/comoc.php?cid=038.jpg) [what](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43290) [the](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003503) [refrance](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tamarian_language) (cartoon gore at is link)


	2. Chapter 2

After -

 

(after after after)

 

\- there's nothing left.

He does not recognize anything left of home to go back to. Cybertron has been scraped clean, and what is left is a hollow, pocked, ravaged shell of what he remembers. And this, apparently, is meant to be an improvement over the war-shattered, dead nightmare the planet became over the long millennia. There are no hot spots left on the desolate surface, and the sky is marred by distant debris and dead satellites. Cyclonus can't bring himself to look at the empty space where Tetrahex used to stand when he flies overhead; staring and wishing will not bring any of it back. So he arrows across the scorched wastes in a straight line, and does not deviate from it.

And then there are the mecha. He wonders if they even realize how alien they have become - their arms race has built on advances from previous wars, and battles that would once have been decided by one's strength of frame and will are now subject to advanced armor upgrades, hyper-specialized processors, and weapons of mass destruction. Each side of the conflict treats the other with visceral hate and distrust as a general rule; they're quick to draw on each other even in what they claim is an uneasy truce.

And they all speak razor-fast, all of the song and flourishes stripped from the language in what he is told is the result of Senatorial prescriptivist purges and a state-enforced drive for efficiency and function over aesthetic that finished long before this war began. They cut through conversation like hot knives through soft gold, skimming past the old courtesies that might have provided a buffer of tradition and ritual between them and their hair-trigger battle reflexes. For the first time since he was forged, Cyclonus doesn't know the scripts that would smooth the way through interactions with other mechs. He doesn't know the culture anymore, and more and more often he falls back on silence while his processor struggles to adapt. He has never been much of one for casual words, and now the gap between him and others feels like a small galaxy. Enough mechs fear and hate him for what he has done that they're usually quick to take it at face value.

Some creativity and wordplay live on, but he does not know the idioms any longer, and their long, thorough war has so utterly annihilated many of the old archives that the only way to obtain more recent samples of war-time literature and poetry is to seek it out almost on a mech-to-mech basis. (And there are few willing to barter with Cyclonus, after - after.) There are a few whose speech sounds paradoxically both intensely alien and just one note off from the Old Cybertronian ( _old_ , they call it) he remembers; they make more references and play more with words, and he cannot figure out what links them except that they have spent more time on one particular alien planet than the rest.

It holds no particular interest for him. He's alive again, free of the Dead Universe's influence and with a fresh pulse of life burning bright in his spark, and discontent sits bitter in his mouth. There's nothing left to keep him here. Rodimus's group intends to leave the planet and search for something more, and he can't bear to sing over a city that no longer _is_. Mapping out the contours of what used to be...

But he stops when he thinks he senses Scourge, lingering lost past the point he should have died.

It's not Scourge. And the mech he finds in the cave full of Sweep corpses has no interest in waiting to listen to Cyclonus's indifference. He can’t tell which Whirl wants more – to die fighting, or to die without a living witness who could carry word back to others.

(He has lived through war and seen what injuries it can deal not just to a frame, but to a mech’s spark and processor. And yet he can’t fully process just what devastation the last war has wrought on the tiny population that remains – there doesn’t seem to be a single Cybertronian left unscarred _,_ and those that try to conceal it do so...poorly.)

[ - _there is none of them all that is whole -_ ]

Whirl launches at him with accelerant still sluicing and splattering out from his rotors, and they careen past the launch site and make it as far as the Mitteous Plateau before crashing to a stop. More literally than Cyclonus anticipates - down to the last inch of his patience, he stops to make one last bid at persuading Whirl that _he does not care_ enough for this to be such an incredible fragging issue, but the mech rams him at top speed as though taking Cyclonus's last warning as a promise. Cyclonus absorbs the hit with little more than a dent (built to outlast anything, really), but then Whirl charges him once more and tackles him over the edge of the cliff.

Cyclonus expects them to break apart and take wing once more, to finish the fight this mech wants so much. His own transformation sequences reflexively engages, as is natural, just before they reach the critical point past which they won't be able to stop before hitting the ground.

Whirl wraps around him like an organic vine, his claws and knobbly joints digging into Cyclonus's seams to clutch him close. Whirl's single optic stays mashed against his chest, jabbing him with the circular edges right in the dent. He ignores the way Cyclonus's multiple incomplete transformation attempts dig deep gouges into his armor while they tumble through the thin air. The mech really _does_ have a death wish, to be able to resist the instinctive need to fly - or else, Cyclonus grudgingly allows, he has an ineffable, ironclad confidence in his ability to survive such a fall.

Once they're below the critical point, Cyclonus sets himself to endure.

Falling is never pleasant; it's a hideously sudden stop. His back hits first with a heavy, shuddering jolt that lays him out flat, and then there is a split second where Whirl's spindly frame bashes against him with a clang before Cyclonus's helm hits the ground and rattles his processor against the inside. Whirl's weight lurches and rolls off him almost at once, but even if Cyclonus's frame sustained little more than surface damage, the concussion can't be shrugged off. Three quarters of the way unconscious, his processor is too busy sinking offline to react when the ground cracks open, and Whirl’s rapidfire, staccato chatter with someone out of sight gives way to a single, sparkfelt, "Holy _f-_!"

-

Cyclonus wakes up in a medical ward, and fixes a tired stare on the ceiling above.

??: Oh! Ohhhh! Are you 'awake,' Cyclonus? I kept trying to talk to you, but Ratchet said you wouldn't talk back while you were unconscious. Which seems like a very boring way to spend your time, in my opinion –

He freezes, joints locking up as his fuel lines run ice cold. Staring at the ceiling suddenly feels less like the default reaction to waking in a medibay, and more like the only logical way to avoid seeing whatever is sitting next to him. He _knows_ that voice, even after a few million years' interim, and the fragment of memory sends him right back to the Ark's decrepit engine rooms. It's one of the clearest, most lucid memories he has from the Dead Universe, standing out starkly amid the many millions of years where the strongest sensation was that of his spark being sucked down into an ever-swallowing void. 

~~(Does he know for sure they ever really left...?)~~

??: They almost left you lying there, you know! But I told them, I said - of _course_ we have to bring Cyclonus! He's my friend, we go way back. And they said, only if you put down Whirl first, and then they started driving away really fast but I folded space right to the medical bay, and you're fine now!

Not looking will not change what is. Not looking just gives... _it_ more time to talk, and that's the last thing Cyclonus needs or wants. He sits upright on the medical berth, taking stock of the damage done (superficial, mostly; the horn is inessential, though the asymmetry will grate. But he was built to outlast anything) before pausing, resetting his optics, and turning.

Somehow, to his unfathomable relief, it's just another mech: he watches Cyclonus with a glossy, luminescent blue visor, swinging short legs back and forth over the side of the berth beside his. Crisp, clean white and blue paint stands out peculiarly against the utilitarian design of the medibay, with an odd, iridescent polish near the joints. Cyclonus can see no sign of weaponry, integrated or otherwise, in the mech's frame, and is ready to ignore him entirely as he forges his way out of this unfamiliar medical ward. The mental energy Cyclonus held in reserve for conversing today got drained by the encounter with Whirl; if he wants to make it through a conversation with Rodimus without lapsing into impatient silence, he can't waste his words here. But the frame – something about the frame –

Too old. _Far_ too old. Cyclonus knows that design, if only in passing. Almost every mech on Cybertron has war upgrades and integrated weaponry now, whether sleek or heavy or overly complicated for seemingly no reason except to vex the optic, and yet this mech looks as though he stepped straight from Iacon of old to the present. Cyclonus is an anachronism himself; he knows a relic when one plops down in front of him.

"But, yes, hi! You're finally here! What took you so long?" the mech asks, waving at Cyclonus cheerfully and bouncing his legs a little higher. The eerie reverberation Cyclonus thought he heard in the mech's voice has disappeared; he's almost ready to mark it down as a trick of the processor, an old auditory memory pinging him due to the fall. Then the mech claps his hands to his face mask, and adds, "Before I forget, though - my name is Tailgate! It came with this shell, which means it's _extra_ authentic. It only has two syllables, and they're spoken separately, not layered. Is that okay?"

If only this mech would stop resurrecting a conversation Cyclonus long thought finished. Now he cannot tell which is more likely - if his processor took a harder hit than he assumed and he's mid-glitch, or if this Tailgate really is an interdimensional being that talks like it has a chronic inability to comprehend 'death' and 'unconsciousness' and 'a linear timeline' beyond the theoretical. Tailgate watches him with an expectant air, switching his legs so that they swing from side to side, and Cyclonus scans him again in the hope that it will reveal something...conclusive.

He doesn't make it past Tailgate's visor. The blue burns too sharply; now that he's looking for it, Cyclonus can't distinguish two distinct optics through the glass. Hissing, Cyclonus tries to tear his gaze away, but only succeeds when Tailgate cocks his head to the side. There's a distinct jolt through his systems before his optics focus on the wall instead, and the light leaves an afterimage dancing across his vision in the same way looking directly at an exposed spark would. "What _are_ you?" he asks, the sound forced through gritted dentae.

"Don't you recognize me?" Tailgate taps two of his servos together, ducking his head and radiating crestfallen disappointment. His mask transforms back so he can pout _and that is not a normal mouth,_ Primus preserve them all - "Aw. I -"

Cyclonus casts a wild glance around the medibay to make sure they're alone and no one can see Tailgate's swirling, tentacle-infested vortex of an intake. He doesn't even _know_ how he would answer someone if they came around asking questions about the creature wearing a Cybertronian frame in front of him, and quite frankly, he doesn't want to find out. Ever. "I recognize you, Tailgate," he says grimly. Thankfully, the foolproof strategy of appeasement works: Tailgate pops his faceplate shut and beams. It occurs to Cyclonus that Tailgate does not possess a Cybertronian-esque mouth to smile with and that he doesn't know where the impression that the creature is smiling came from; and he chooses not to question it for the sake of his own sanity. "Where did you get that body? Or is it an illusion?" He'd almost prefer the latter.

Tailgate's vocalizer bubbles with giggling laughter, and he flaps a hand at Cyclonus. "What? Oh, this? It was built here! I had to open up a little extra pocket dimension in the chest to make room for all of me, but it's pretty nice, isn't it? It transforms and everything!" He raps the knuckles of his servos against his white chest panel, nodding as it resonates like a tuning fork with an single, pure note. "And who doesn't like a little extra interdimensional storage space in their chest, I ask you? No one. No one, that's who."

Cyclonus opens and closes his mouth. He has many questions, and suspects that he would like the answer to exactly none of them. " _When_ did you get here, exactly?" he asks, because he has to ask - something. Something that isn't, ' _Was there someone else in there first?_ '

Asking the safer question is still a mistake. "I don't know, six million years backwards?" Tailgate starts babbling, and Cyclonus represses a strut-deep groan as he realizes what he's unleashed. _Again_. "I snagged this shell, and I _thought_ I had timed it right to see you before you left, but I must have just missed you and your ship! Just between you and me, my siphuncles have been working overtime to get the last of that universe's gunk out, so there are still...uh, hiccups." For a split second, Tailgate's biolights flicker dark, brackish purple; then he laughs again, kicking his legs one last time, and his biolights flicker through most of the color spectrum in Cyclonus's optical range before settling. "It's fine, though! I remembered which temporal vector you follow and everyone around here seems pretty linear, so I took a quick nap to go forward and here you are! At last. Now this frame's an antique, Ratchet says! _So_ vintage." He stands up on the berth and strikes a pose, hands on his hips and chest puffed out.

...So. This is what Cyclonus has to work with. Last time, the glitch happened so gradually Cyclonus didn't notice the creeping decay in his processor until it was too late. Now? All of Vector Sigma's mysterious work and his own slow crawl back up from the Dead Universe's abyss to reclaim his mind and agency - rendered meaningless when confronted with _this ludicrous, unparalleled nonsense_.

No matter. There's a simple solution, at least: he might not be able to run from Tailgate, but he _can_ ignore him. Cyclonus already has his goal in mind; he sets his processor to it and stands without a word, striding across the medibay to reach the door. The place really is understaffed; apart from a few non-sentient droids, there's been no sign of a medic in residence at all, and therefore no meddler around to interfere with Cyclonus's departure. "Whoa, wait up!" Tailgate calls when Cyclonus makes it to the hallway. He hears a faint clang as the mech hops off the berth, and then the tap of footsteps coming after him. Cyclonus widens his stride, since he has a significant height advantage over the creature's small frame, but it's a futile gesture. There's nothing he can do to stop Tailgate from jogging alongside him that won't end in further absurdity.

But he needs to know where he is. Depending on how long Cyclonus was out of commission, Rodimus may have left the planet already: there's no reason for him to have delayed the launch for the sake of an appointment with someone most Autobots consider a Decepticon. Wandering the unfamiliar halls won't accomplish anything; Cyclonus recognizes the construction as Cybertronian in make and proportions, but there are no identifying insignia or decorative scripts carved into the walls. They could be anywhere. Cameras wink indiscreetly from the ceiling, and Cyclonus ignores them as well.

"It's so good to have someone I recognize and can talk to; we can be roommates! Mostly I'm staying incognito to get the full experience, y'know, but I thiiink I might have already messed up a little. That Whirl guy wouldn't even sit still in the same room as us, which seemed kinda rude -"

Tailgate chatters on, and Cyclonus makes the executive decision to risk one more question, if only because that will allow him to actively choose what Tailgate babbles about next and may forestall yet more talk of _roommates_. He stops dead and rounds on the mech, looming over him with a suitable glower, and Tailgate skids to a stop and backs up a pace to look up at him expectantly. "Where have you brought me? I had an appointment -" he starts to say.

Tailgate snaps his servos, his visor brightening and throbbing with otherworldly excitement. "The _Lost Light!_ Just wait until you hear these engines, Cyclonus! They sing in quantum chords! They're getting ready to jump right now - I bet we can still make it and hum along up close, if we dash! Come on, let's go!" The mech tries to snatch up Cyclonus's hand and drag him down the hallway with alarming strength. Cyclonus - restrains himself, using just enough force to yank his servos free without knocking Tailgate aside. The last thing he wants is to send Tailgate sobbing down the corridor; the risk that the creature inside might shed its Cybertronian shell to float away faster is too great. It earns him another pleading pout, but that much, he can ignore in favor of more important matters.

The _Lost Light_ is Rodimus's ship; they were close to the launch site, but it's better to be sure. Cyclonus would be thankful, but he mostly feels tired. Tired, with a distinct note of doomed resignation, because if they are already aboard and Tailgate is already enamored with the engine room, then Cyclonus has no way to persuade him to _leave_.

Whether Rodimus permits Cyclonus to stay aboard, however, could be another matter entirely. Judging by the faint vibrations beginning to thrum through the floor, the ship may be in the initial takeoff phase - if it hasn't left the planet already. If Tailgate used some physics-defying method to bring them here, Rodimus might not know Cyclonus is present, which may get Cyclonus off the inferior husk that Cybertron has been reduced to, at least. "Enough," he says brusquely, cutting Tailgate off. "If this is the _Lost Light_ , I must locate Rodimus. I do not have time to coddle you."

"The one full of old fire? I think he might be with the other guy wearing cool shells on the bridge. You should see him, he's so layered! I think his name is Ultra Magnus? I told him I liked his style, but he just looked at me funny and walked away really fast." When Cyclonus starts walking again with a purpose, Tailgate runs to keep up. There's a little hop to his step that lasts too long - he bounds along with an air of weightlessness that does not synch correctly with the gravity affecting Cyclonus. Worse, Cyclonus can't stop noticing the discrepancy once he's seen it, and it is _unsettling_.

Then Tailgate stops dead mid-bound, and that's even worse, because it leaves him standing on nothing at all. Cyclonus continues on, determined to reach an intersection and locate some kind of console to access the ship's systems, but Tailgate's voice sounds...concerned. "Uh. Actually, you might want to wait a second," he says to Cyclonus's back.

Cyclonus cycles a vent, and turns only his head to look back at Tailgate. He can feel the vibrations of the ship rise and then muffle as the ship's dampeners kick in. "What is it _now_?"

Tailgate taps his servos together again in a nervous gesture. Instead of looking at Cyclonus, his visor looks back and to the left. "Does your species have built in quantum cuttlebones? Entanglement regulators? Because you all seem very linear, and this ship is very...not...and if you don't, I don't think someone without a me should be standing that close while the engines are starting a symphon-"

**_BOOM._ **

The explosion jolts the floor out from under Cyclonus's feet, and he catches himself on a hand and knee, ducking his helm and bracing for further turbulence. The force of the explosion knocks several panels loose from the ceiling, but apart from that Cyclonus can't see the source of it near them. After a quick reset, his audials stop ringing and the alarms blaring from the ship itself begin to bombard him at a pitch that is a sensory nightmare for him; he grimly muffles the volume as much as he dares, and adjusts his optics to compensate for the flashing red light. Tailgate floats by him, giggling like a mech possessed, the sound reaching Cyclonus despite his temporarily muted senses, and Cyclonus seizes him and wrestles the wayward mech to the floor in case more debris starts flying around. "Stay down," Cyclonus snaps when Tailgate squirms and tries to wrap his arms around Cyclonus's waist.

Light cascades from Tailgate's optics in streamers as he hugs Cyclonus's arm, trilling with delight. "That was _amazing!_ We went in two different directions! Cyclonus, this is the _best_ ship! Can you hear me talking to the other iteration now?" He starts poking Cyclonus in the cheek vent with aggressive fascination, and Cyclonus yanks his helm out of arm's reach without responding. It's silence or throwing the creature through a wall, and he's not confident in his ability to do the latter without Tailgate bouncing right back at him. "Oh, I guess not," Tailgate says, deflating a little. He ex-vents a wistful sigh before perking back up. "No consciousness synchronization between you? You're completely separate? Wow, that's neat!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." The ship begins to shake under Cyclonus's knee with the kind of wild, shuddering tremors that indicate an emergency landing, and he presses Tailgate toward the floor one last time before standing. Tailgate pops up onto his feet again and drifts to the side, skimming along without being affected by the ship's tremors. "If you won't stay put -" Cyclonus breaks off. "...Just stay out of the way."

"I _knew_ this would be a good trip," Tailgate says, with another quiet, happy vent. When Cyclonus breaks into a run, he easily keeps pace. "We are going to have _so much fun_!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- sometime before Cyclonus wakes up -
> 
> Ultra Magnus: /walking to the bridge/  
> Tailgate: Oh wow! Nice shell! It makes you so tall!  
> Ultra Magnus: /walking faster, screaming internally/
> 
> This chapter is [less](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwkej79U3ek) thoroughly [sourced](http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/algernon-charles-swinburne/a-song-in-time-of-revolution-1860/) than the [one](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_natural_language) previous. I am ashamed. Anyway, that's all for now!


End file.
